Page 9 of Where the Fields Don’t Reach

Maybe she was stuck in the past.

She found herself wondering a lot lately if she’d done the right thing turning in her detective shield. The investigation into Reed’s death had stalled within the first month, and most days she still went through the same files searching for something she’d missed the last time. Eleven months into the investigation, and not a single new lead to show for any of it. Julian had been right about one thing. Whatever she’d been doing wasn’t working. Maybe it really was time to take a different approach.

Mrs. Foster complained weekly that she didn’t have a place to sit and that it would be nice if Hadley offered her coffee every now and then. There were some extra chairs in the back of the house that would be perfect on either side of the window overlooking Main Street. She’d even ask Mason to make her a small coffee table to fit between them, which would give her a legitimate reason to stop by the house.

If Hadley were to implement such a sitting area, she’d finally have to deal with the one thing she’d been avoiding since she’d taken over as police chief. She’d have to clean out Reed’s desk and then move it to storage.

It was time, though.

It was time to move forward.

3

Hadley Dawkins

September 2026

Monday – 9:26 am

Reed’s chair was higher than hers.

It was the first thing Hadley had noticed when she sat down. It shouldn’t have come as any great surprise. He had been taller than she was, and the elevation of the chair had been set for him. Her ankle boots didn’t quite touch the floor the way they did in her own chair, either. She had to push the balls of her shoes into the hardwood to keep her weight settled until she could bring the height down a notch.

George Strait was playing from her laptop on her own desk across the room. She had pulled up the local country station before she had walked back to the kitchen for an empty cardboard box. The room had been too quiet for what she was about to do, and the radio station was the one she kept the laptop tuned to most mornings, anyway.

George Strait was the right kind of company for it, too.

Slow and unhurried.

She’d also refreshed her coffee while in the kitchen, and she set her mug down on Reed’s desk before resting both palms on the hard surface. The wood was warmer than her own, somehow. She chalked it up to the sunlight coming through the window, though at this time of morning the rays had yet to hit his desk.

She reached for the top drawer first.

She had decided the best way to get through cleaning out the contents was to do so methodically. One drawer at a time. No overthinking anything. Each item would either go into the box for transport down to the basement or into the trash.

The top drawer slid open with the smallest of sounds.

Inside were pens, paperclips, a roll of stamps, and several pads of sticky notes. There were numerous folded receipts, mostly from Maisy’s, all dated over a year ago. Hadley tossed the latter into the garbage can before sweeping the rest into the box.

She pushed the tray closed.

The first drawer on the right-hand side had been mostly used for reports and citations. There was also a spare pair of reading glasses she had never noticed Reed wearing, and she couldn’t bring herself to throw them away. They went into the storage box for good measure.

The second drawer made her wonder how she hadn’t had an ant problem since moving in. There were several bags of candy, from chocolate to practically pure sugar. She threw it all into the garbage can, not trusting that any of it was still good. She grimaced in disgust after she closed the drawer to open the one on the bottom.

It wouldn’t budge.

She pulled harder, but the drawer only gave about half an inch before stopping. There was a small scratching sound, like paper catching on something, and then nothing. She yanked again, getting the drawer to move another quarter inch.

She let go of the handle and sat back in the chair.

She and Sheriff Turner had torn this place apart after Reed’s death. The drawer hadn’t been stuck then, but that didn’t mean something hadn’t lodged during the search. Either something was wedged along the top edge, or the drawer’s tracks had slipped out of alignment. Maybe both.

Hadley sighed in resignation before getting out of the chair and onto her knees in front of the desk. The bottom drawer was the kind that came completely out when one pulled it past the stop, so she leveraged it to lift the front edge over the rollers.

The drawer still wouldn’t budge.

“Damn it,” Hadley muttered, reaching her arm into the opening she’d managed to obtain. She ran her fingers along the underside of the desk’s frame, coming into contact with some type of paper. Snagging a corner of it, she began to slowly work it loose. “Gotcha.”